Closed-meeting language draws criticism

Friday

Jul 30, 2010 at 12:01 AMJul 30, 2010 at 9:37 AM

Shall Section 8 of the Charter of the City of Columbus be amended to require that all meetings of the council or its committees be held in public in accordance with the general laws of Ohio pertaining to the requirements for open meetings of public bodies?

The Dispatch's Robert Vitale contributes this report:

Columbus City Council members want to discuss some of their business in private.

So they've submitted wording for a Nov. 2 ballot issue on the matter that would ask voters "to require that all meetings of the council or its committees be held in public in accordance with the general laws of Ohio."

Here's the rub: The city charter requires the council to conduct every minute of its business in public. Ohio law would not.

City officials said yesterday that they've made themselves perfectly clear.

"If it was a misleading statement, that would be a problem," said City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr., whose office wrote the ballot question now under review by the Franklin County Board of Elections.

"What more clear way can you state it than what the language says?"

Pfeiffer said the wording proposed by his office and the council spells out exactly what an amended city charter would say if voters approve the change: that the Columbus City Council would be governed by Ohio's open-meetings law.

But elections officials and the Franklin County prosecutor's office have raised concerns about the language. It might cover what the amendment would say, they contend, but it doesn't fully tell voters what the amendment would do.

Shall Section 8 of the Charter of the City of Columbus be amended to require that all meetings of the council or its committees be held in public in accordance with the general laws of Ohio pertaining to the requirements for open meetings of public bodies?

The Dispatch's Robert Vitale contributes this report:

Columbus City Council members want to discuss some of their business in private.

So they've submitted wording for a Nov. 2 ballot issue on the matter that would ask voters "to require that all meetings of the council or its committees be held in public in accordance with the general laws of Ohio."

Here's the rub: The city charter requires the council to conduct every minute of its business in public. Ohio law would not.

City officials said yesterday that they've made themselves perfectly clear.

"If it was a misleading statement, that would be a problem," said City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr., whose office wrote the ballot question now under review by the Franklin County Board of Elections.

"What more clear way can you state it than what the language says?"

Pfeiffer said the wording proposed by his office and the council spells out exactly what an amended city charter would say if voters approve the change: that the Columbus City Council would be governed by Ohio's open-meetings law.

But elections officials and the Franklin County prosecutor's office have raised concerns about the language. It might cover what the amendment would say, they contend, but it doesn't fully tell voters what the amendment would do.

If the change is approved, council members would gain new authority to interview potential midterm replacements behind closed doors. Ohio law also would give the council open-meetings exemptions to allow private discussion of city workers' job performance, land purchases with taxpayers' money, lawsuits against the police and other matters.

County election-operations manager Karen Cotton and election-operations aide Carla Patton are concerned that the city's language for the amendment is too vague, according to elections board spokesman Ben Piscitelli.

"The language refers to the laws of the state of Ohio without giving the voter any idea what those laws say," Piscitelli said.

Mark Rutkus, legislative aide for council President Michael C. Mentel, dismissed any questions raised by O'Brien, Palmer, Cotton and Patton because all are Republicans. Every Columbus City Council member is a Democrat, as is Pfeiffer.

He accused O'Brien of trying to inject politics into the matter.

The city's proposed ballot language, which mentions "open meetings" and "meetings ... held in public," simply mirrors the words that would be added to the charter if voters approve the closed-meeting amendment, he said.

"It is literally verbatim what the proposed change would be," Rutkus said. "I don't know how much more clear we could be to the voters."

The four elections board members - two Democrats and two Republicans - will decide how to word the proposed charter amendment after Wednesday's deadline for municipalities and other government entities to submit fall ballot issues.

They will send their proposed language to Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, who has the final say.

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